Guess what, it’s the age of the iPod — if somebody wants music on the lakefront, they’ll bring it themselves. And even if someone did want music, I doubt anyone would request warbly, distorted Led Zeppelin. Oh, here’s the station break — you’re playing The Drive. Yeah, um, don’t. Please.

When I was last out at the Dunes I saw a group of rowdy teenagers tossing beanbags through holes cut in two boards (one painted Sox colors, the other Cubs colors). If only I’d know they were cornholing.

An old co-worker of mine used to have terrible fights with the parking enforcement workers about whether or not he could park his scooter on the sidewalk. This scooter in my neighborhood has a laminated sign affixed to its license plate that cites specific Illinois code that make it legal to park on the sidewalk. I wonder how effective it is.

I mark the anniversary of my birth this evening at the stroke of midnight. Every year I organize a little show to celebrate the fact I managed not to do anything incredibly dumb that resulted in my death during the preceding 365 days. Tonight is also remarkable in that it features the debut of The Midnight Shows, the new rock and/or soul band headed up by ex-Woolworthy frontman Rudy Gonzalez. Also performing are Textbook and Muchacha, both incredibly high-energy local favorites, and my girlfriend will take over DJing duties in-between sets when I’m too drunk to cue up any more songs.

Anyway, I hope to see you tonight at The Pontiac…and don’t worry about buying me a drink since I will probably already have had too many.

I’ve actually gotten fairly used to seeing raccoons in the city, but this was the first time I’ve seen babies. I would have taken more pictures, but I wanted to let the momma get on with the business of teaching the babies how to be raccoons.

Hi Everybody! I was thinking about starting all my posts that way. Only time will tell.

Amadou and Mariam, the blind couple from Mali, perform tomorrow at Millennium Park. I’m usually really against music from other places, but the album is very good, very pop. Great melodies. I have to say I listen to it at work a lot, and since it’s free, and at 6:00, and within walking distance from my job, there’s a 50% chance that I’ll go. Actually, more like 35%.

Yesterday, during my weekly rounds, I stopped briefly to snap this picture on 78th and Ellis. As far as my neighborhoods go, this part of town is fairly quiet, so the whole “Terror Town” thing is a mystery to me.

Or should I say, employees, because there were five of you standing at the intersection this morning. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for waiving traffic through the light when it was green and for making that “stop” motion with your orange plastic light wand when the light turned red. It’s amazing to me that we ever functioned with just traffic lights before you came into our lives–it’s like we were living without the internets. How did we know that green meant we could proceed and that red meant we should stop?! And yellow? Oh, the multitude of colors was just so confusing!

But now, thanks to you–and your four co-workers–we no longer have to worry about sitting at the intersection, thinking, “well, it’s green… should I go?” No, you are there, with your shining beacon of traffic direction to guide us, slowly, on our way to work.

So thank you, Traffic Management Authority Employee, for doing the critical job that previously could only have been done with cost-effective automated signal systems. Your redundancy is what makes this the “City that works!”